Jessica Koslow

Mark Ruegg is the youngest of 10 kids. That’s just the first fantastic fact about him. He has 21 nieces and nephews and 40-plus great-nieces and nephews. He was a dancer who traveled the world and fell into his current profession of child wrangling by chance. Most recently, he is a Stage 4 pancreatic cancer survivor. His latest scans show no detectable tumors in his pancreas or lymph nodes, and, in his doctors’ words, his liver looks “almost as good as new.”  

“It’s been pretty remarkable,” said Ruegg. “My oncologists and doctors can’t explain it. It’s been 2 1/2 years, and I’m showing no evidence of disease. Cancer has been the greatest gift of my entire life, and it’s changed my lifestyle.”

Ruegg grew up in Akron, Ohio, born nine years after his next youngest sibling. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Troy Alsobrook and David Thomas have fairly similar life stories. They are both LA natives who met playing football at Martin Luther King Jr. High in Riverside. They both moved to the desert to attend rival colleges, then to the Midwest, then back to LA — and both are passionate about beach clean-up, which their nonprofit, DAILY dEPOSITSx, has been hosting quarterly for the past three years in Playa del Rey. The next one is July 5.

Their differences are in the details: Alsobrook went to Mt. San Jacinto College and Thomas attended College of the Desert in Palm Desert. Thomas moved to Colorado. Alsobrook ended up in Kansas.

Back in LA, the two found themselves looking for outlets to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Their bond had always been over sports and physical activity. Thomas lived in Culver City and Alsobrook in Torrance, so Playa del Rey beach was a good middle ground meeting spot. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Caroline Paules and Karin Najarian are both young, ambitious and think about the local — and global — housing crisis a lot. At least eight hours each day. Both have been directly affected by the national emergency; Paules more directly as the occupant of the lone house standing on her block after the Eaton Fire in Altadena.

As a team of two, they are using different tactics to help solve the problem: Paules as an engineer and Najarian as an architect. They are the CEO and COO, respectively, of Nova Cottage Co., a new affordable housing startup headquartered at tech incubator Idealab Studio in Pasadena.

UN-Habitat predicts that by 2030, 40% of the world population (about 3 billion people) will not have access to adequate, safe and affordable housing. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

On Dec. 26, 1927, Hollywood’s elite arrived for the screening of the silent film, “My Best Girl” starring Mary Pickford, at the grand opening of DTLA’s United Artists Theatre on Broadway. Almost a century later, invited guests mingled inside the majestic movie palace to celebrate the relaunch of STILE DTLA, the design-forward lifestyle hotel in the storied United Artists building.

Food and drinks flowed inside the cultural-historic landmark as the hotel team explained the changes made to the property since 2023, when it officially changed its name from the Ace Hotel to STILE DTLA.

LA-based interior design firm Design, Bitches transformed the hotel’s 182 guest rooms, which now include skincare products made in Korea exclusively for STILE, Copper Cow Coffee and Harney & Sons tea. On the first and second floor, SparkHouse will soon offer state-of-the-art studios and collaborative workspaces through private membership. The rooftop bar, Somewhere Special, has been upgraded, and The Goodie Shop in the lobby, which includes a cassette library and Walkman listening program, has been revamped. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

After spending 28 years editing other people’s books — more than 500 across every nonfiction genre — Marisa Solis decided to write her own. She and her co-author, Elizabeth Dougherty, penned a book for the first time about writing a book for the first time.  

Solis and Dougherty will be reading from and signing “The Complete Expert-to-Author Guide: Plan, Write, and Publish Your Nonfiction Book” at Vroman’s Bookstore on July 14.

Although Solis is currently a freelance editor and book coach, she did not always think she would help other people express themselves with words. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

Anand Pandian was born and raised in the United States, and like many people, he has been increasingly concerned about the direction things are going in the country, especially as someone whose parents came to America with the hope of finding a better life for themselves and their children.

“The xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric of these last years was disturbing to me,” said Pandian, the Krieger-Eisenhower professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

He put his skills to work and did what he knew how: He wrote his fifth book, “Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down,” for which he will receive the 2026 Zócalo Book Prize on June 25 at ASU California Center Broadway. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

One late afternoon in mid-May, guests at The Anthem Hotel in Inglewood sat face-to-face with celebrity pop culture astrologer Kyle Thomas for complimentary astrology readings. It was part of the hotel’s ongoing #GRWM (Get Ready With Me) pre-concert activation; tonight was Lorde’s show next door at Kia Forum. 

“One of the best things about The Anthem’s location is that guests are right in the middle of one of the most exciting entertainment districts in the country,” said The Anthem’s General Manager Ruben Flores. “We’re just steps from SoFi Stadium, Intuit Dome, Kia Forum and YouTube Theater, so guests can easily walk to major concerts, games and events. They can spend the night at a sold-out show or big game and then be back at the hotel, relaxing by the pool or rooftop just minutes later, which is not something you typically experience in LA.”

The Anthem is also about 10 minutes from LAX, making it ideal for visitors attending the 2026 FIFA World Cup, 2027 Super Bowl LXI and LA28 Olympic Games. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Sometime around 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 17, a giant windstorm hit Manzanar National Historic Site, located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains just north of Lone Pine. To Dan Kwong, the winds felt like they were blowing 80 miles an hour. The dust was gusting sideways, and he could not see 10 feet in front of his face.

When the dirt settled, Kwong was able to see that much of his and his fellow volunteers’ hard work was smashed to the ground. In 2023, the staff of Manzanar National Historic Site announced it would rebuild its WWII baseball field, which was used when more than 11,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly incarcerated between 1942 and 1945. The newly finished announcer’s booth was still standing, but the storm had destroyed most of the fencing on the first base side.

“It was just heartbreaking,” Kwong said. “To watch it slowly give way and just, bam, smash down. It’s the third time we’ve had damage from wind, but this was just absolute obliteration. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Growing up in Encino, Nancy Silverton remembers shopping at small businesses with her parents. Unlike the Encino of today, populated by mini-malls, it was a town of tiny shops and markets, like the family-owned Jurgensen’s Grocery Company, Owl Rexall pharmacy and Gibson Girl boutique.

Silverton’s maternal grandfather was a doctor in Yonkers, New York, who practiced out of an office above their home. Her paternal grandfather was a jeweler in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, whose shop was the community gathering place. Her parents were “small-town people.” 

Although she wanted to, Silverton never went into a department store or a fast-food chain restaurant—until much later in life. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

It is where the Beastie Boys created some of their most iconic work — “Check Your Head,” “Ill Communication” and “Hello Nasty” — and where they filmed the “Pass the Mic” music video. It was a 1,600-plus square foot studio, label headquarters, clubhouse, skate spot, basketball court: a creative anything-goes space that, post-Beasties, has been home to Han Cholo Jewelry, X-Large Clothing and Mad Decent Recordings. Recently, Courtney Barnett filmed her video in the back for “One Thing at a Time.”

The place is G-Son Studios in Atwater Village, an old ballroom that is known today as one of the most mythic creative hideouts in LA. The legend goes that around 1990, when Atwater Village had a more small town USA vibe, the Beastie Boys arrived from New York City with record label money in their pockets. They decided to set up their own recording studio on Atwater’s main strip.

On the roof of the building, an old sign that used to read Gilson Plumbing and Heating now only listed “G son.” The studio’s name was decided thus for the place where the trio would launch Grand Royal, the label and magazine, and catapult themselves to global superstardom. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.